arienettelyn's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- god and the pledge of allegiance i read this article yesterday about how the 9th circuit court is debating on whether to remove the words 'under god' from the pledge of allegiance. then i read some people's responses that idea. they were pissed off, because they believe that the only people who would benefit from those words being removed are athiests, who they believe are evil, immoral people who ruin everything for the good religious folk. this pissed me off so much...i can't even put it into words. first off, if you didn't know, i don't believe in god. i wouldn't go so far as to say athiest, because it seems like such a strong word...but i guess i am. i'm pretty doubtful about the existence of any god. and i don't believe that i am an evil, immoral person. in fact, i believe that there are very few athiests who are. just because we don't get our morals from a book full of myths about god and the creation of earth doesn't mean we don't have any morals at all. and also, i would like to point out that the presence of religion or the belief in god does not indicate that a person is good and moral. catholic priests molesting little boys? yeah, and i'm the fool because i don't want to be associated with that? anyway....i think i got off topic a bit but my point was that church and state are separate. people say that it's alright to say "god" in the pledge of allegiance because it is a very general word, and it can be any god you choose it to be. and what if you don't choose to have a god? what then? in our public schools, or at least the ones i went to, we were forced to say the pledge of allegience from kindergarten until middle school. it's just not right. not to mention the words 'under god' weren't even in the original version of the pledge...they were added during one of the world wars.... which moves me onto another point....i really hate the pledge of allegiance. well, not the actual pledge so much as the fact that in our schools we are forced to say it. i learned the pledge in kindergarten, and we were forced to recite it each morning. of course it didn't bother me then, i was five, but the notion of groups of young children blindly reciting an oath of allegiance to their country really bothers me. they don't even know what it means, but they are forced to say it! i know this is kind of extreme, but it makes me think of the hitler youth all doing that salute thing, and not even really understanding it. and i suppose, even in elementary school, a child can refuse to say the pledge, but that poor kid is gonna be fucking ostracized for being different, and who wants that? it's really not fair... in high school, we said the pledge, but in my homeroom we were given the option to just stand up and stare at the flag if we didn't want to say it. i thought that was horribly stupid, but i did it anyway. and me and the one other kid in the class who didnt say it were given evil looks by the teacher. the reason i don't want to say the pledge has nothing to do with the stupid 'under god' part. if that bothered me, i would say the rest and just omit that. i just don't think i can honestly pledge allegiance to this or any country. i mean, if by allegience they mean that i won't become a spy and tell other countries our secrets or go join al qaeda or whatever, then yeah. i can pledge allegiance that way. but by pledging my allegiance to the usa, i feel like i am accepting all the shit that goes on here, letting it happen and not being able to fix it. if pledging my allegiance means supporting a war against iraq, then i cannot do it. it would be a lie, and in a free country there is no reason for us to be forced to make a statement like that. 12:57 p.m. - 2003-03-03 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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